A journalism training college that had its accreditation removed last year by the National Council for the Training of Journalists has gone into liquidation.
NoSWeat Journalism, which has seen hundreds of journalists pass through its doors since it started up 13 years ago, announced the news in a statement on its website today.
It read: “NoSWeat Journalism Training Ltd has regretfully decided to cease trading as the UK economy falls back into recession.
“NoSWeat has successfully trained hundreds of journalists since it began in 1999. Graduates have achieved some of the highest goals in the industry securing staff jobs on national broadsheets and with national and international broadcasters.
“The directors were unable to agree a rescue package with the company’s creditors. Latterly, negotiations with the landlord broke down and the company had no option but to vacate its premises and cease to trade.
“KSA Group Limited has been instructed to place the company into liquidation.”
NoSWeat, based in Clerkenwell, North London, suffered a major blow last year when the NCTJ removed accreditation for its full-time and part-time journalism courses.
The centre had been NCTJ accredited since 2001/2 but the training body said its directors had decided the courses no longer fully met its standards.
An NCTJ spokesperson said at the time: “The NCTJ decided not to renew accreditation when it expired in July 2011 for full-time and part-time newspaper journalism courses at Nosweat.
“The directors agreed that these courses did not fully meet the NCTJ standard, aims and performance indicators.”
Leader of the course Stephen Ward claimed the decision was unfair and appealed to qualifications watchdog Ofqual.
However Ofqual said that the decision taken by the NCTJ not to renew accreditation was operational and not a regulatory matter.
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I heard the standards slipped and it wasn’t a good place to train in these hard times. Fewer vacancies now too in many papers.
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I always liked the fact that Steve Ward proudly displayed a clipping of his article about women who were afraid of their vaginas prominently on the wall of the student common room. I think you could tell a lot about the college from that
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doesn’t add up. thousands of hopeful kids pouring out of colleges to no jobs and hundreds of papers seriously under-staffed. that’s what I call a recession Hope more training centres don’t go same way.
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I was there when it moved from its old base in Islington to Clerkenwell. I learned a lot there, had some great times, and met some fantastic people.
I don’t know the full ins and outs of what went wrong, but I suspect the centre may have tried to diversify when what it did – focused newspaper journalism training – was very, very good. Its provision of Saturday courses for people who had jobs was, at least during my time, unique.
I hope Steve bounces back and gives ’em what for.
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We are offering FREE places on our NCTJ Diploma distance learning courses to any of the NoSweaters who need to complete their exams – that’s people on the current part-time course, or people who have just completed the full-time course and need re-sits.
Email me at [email protected], or see course details at http://www.ctjt.biz/nctj_journalism_diploma/diploma.html
We’ll do all we can to help you guys get your qualification
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What reputable training centre would call itself ‘NoSweat’?
Surely he was taking the p*ss. I looked him up on LinkedIn, and nothing before his founding of this ‘training centre’ was listed. Just saying.
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Strikes me that it’s all for the best. Let;s face it, there are no worthwhile jobs left in journalism any more – just sweatshops and Press release re-write centres.
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I am one of the affected students from NoSweat. This article does not paint a full picture – please read and circulate this and the comments below
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/may/01/journalism-education-newspapers
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